


Alone

by cameron_writes_nonsense



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, BLACKWING - Freeform, Backstory, Dirk deserved so much better, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Dirk Gently, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Priest is a dick, dirk centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 22:30:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13645749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cameron_writes_nonsense/pseuds/cameron_writes_nonsense
Summary: "It’s so loud, always. The blaring alarms ‘Awake. Awake. You are awake.’ Yes, I’m awake, please, stop. ‘Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wro-’ Not again, please. He just wants quiet but he never ever gets it."Backstory for Dirk. Very angsty with a happy ending.





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> So... this is my first Dirk Gently fic and I'm posting it in its first draft form because it's pretty much just a kind of go-with-the-flow thing. I hope you enjoy.

Everything around him is white. The walls gleam with terrifying sterility that promises the most terrifying pain and crushing loneliness ~~Svlad~~ Dirk has ever experienced.

It’s so loud, always. The blaring alarms ‘Awake. Awake. You are awake.’ Yes, I’m awake, please, stop. ‘Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wro-’ Not again, please. He just wants quiet but he never ever gets it. Not even when the lights dim to signal the expected start of a new sleep cycle that will be interwoven with nightmares because ~~Svla~~ Dirk can still hear others screaming as he drifts to sleep. He sometimes wonders if they ever hear him screaming.

He is eight the first time he gets hurt by a person directly. The one called ‘Priest’ grabs him by the throat after his first escape attempt and throws him into a wall. He hears the ringing in his ears for hours.

Alarms blare often. Other ‘subjects’ seem to be a lot better at getting out than him. His hands used to go up to his ears to block out the horrible, grating sounds but he made himself stop doing that a long time ago.

\---

‘I’m going to get out one day,’ he whispers to the ceiling aged nine and a half.

‘And where would you go?’ asks the worst one. ‘No one wants a psychic.’

‘I’m not psychic.’

\---

He is fifteen the first time he sees outside. He glimpses a vast expanse of blue dotted with white blobs before he is seized and beaten. He cries himself to sleep that night in silence, always in silence. He sleeps as straight as a board and never makes a sound.

He remembers so much screaming. Most of it was probably his. Everyone always knew he had a low pain threshold. He wishes he could stop. He never does.

He meets two other ‘subjects’. Moloch and Lamia. A man who doesn’t talk and a girl who he first met as a teddy bear. Both are eventually taken away from him amidst alarms and the horrible, horrible ‘Wrong’.

What did he do?

\---

 ~~Svl~~ Dirk stares at the city in wonder. He’s never seen so many people. Never seen so many colours. It’s beautiful. He is going to be normal. He is going to get a job. As a detective. He’s going to make friends and talk to people and wear things that aren’t jumpsuits and he is going to have so much colour.

He gets on a bus, and it takes him to fourteen whole new places in under half an hour. He goes into a very tall tower and meets a crow. And a squirrel. He walks into a shop and talks to a lady for five minutes, in which time he manages to talk her into buying over a thousand pounds worth of clothes.

They offer him a job, paying thirty pounds an hour. He accepts because money is essential on the Outside and he needs to get a flat. He moves in with a lovely girl called Lizzie who laughs at his silly mannerisms and helps him understand the world a bit better. He thanks her. He makes lots of money and spends very little of it. He learns that the best things in life are often very cheap and that he likes cinnamon swirls.

He is happy for three months.

\---

 ~~Sv~~ Dirk lies on the floor in his flat and cries. He’d met a man named Thor and now Lizzie hated him and she’d run away with a good-looking man in a suit. He was alone again. He doesn’t leave the house for two weeks. He loses his job. He doesn’t care. No one wants a psychic.

He goes where he’s told to go by his hunches. He solves cases. He meets the most weird and wonderful people. He steals cars and sleeps in them. He wakes up from nightmares with tears running down his face and his fists clenched at his sides. And he is alone.

He learns how to drive badly. He almost dies a lot. He runs off into forests and stares at stars and smiles because he is free and they are beautiful. He smiles because they make him feel less alone. He buys tea and drinks it. It helps calm him down sometimes. Most times he spills something because his hands are shaking but it’s okay. He cries a lot but he also laughs a lot and he climbs a tree for the first time in his life. And he meets a very pretty boy with dark hair and bright eyes who takes him dancing. He kisses the very pretty boy and decides that’s his type. The boy leaves in the night at some point, leaving him in a loud dark room full of people mostly wearing black. He has a flashback and runs away. He never sees the boy again.

\---

 ~~S~~ Dirk moves to America. Where Blackwing is. Or was. Was. So it’s safe. He rushes around getting into all sorts of trouble and meeting some very nice people. And also some not so nice people. Quite a few of whom may or may not have tried to kill him. But that’s alright because he’s still alive and America is brilliant and also he’s kind of rich now because exchange rates are cool and maths and so what if he has nightmares every night and wakes up crying everything is great!

He finds bright and colourful fake leather bomber jackets and wears them with patterned shirts and vivid ties. He goes to his first ever gay pride and kisses another boy and this one takes him home and they do something very new but very very fun. And in the morning they have breakfast, which gets cut short because he gets a hunch and rushes off and gets into a lot of trouble and ends up in a prison cell. Which he gets out of immediately ‘courtesy of the CIA’ which is terrifying. He spends three weeks hiding in his bedroom after stocking up on canned food and microwave porridge. Oh, and tea.

He eventually thinks that probably they aren’t looking for him because staying in the same place is a bit obvious so it’s probably all fine. Then he gets called and hired (like a proper detective!) by a man called Patrick Spring who wants him to solve his own murder (brilliant). So he goes on a case and Patrick Spring dies (which is horrible) and he meets his assis-friend, Todd, who is amazing and saves his life a lot and there is a shark inside a kitten and Lydia Spring (Patrick Spring’s daughter) turns out to sort of be a dog which is fascinating, right Todd? Todd is really angry at him and doesn’t want to be his friend and Farah (who is also amazing) isn’t really his proper friend yet and suddenly he’s alone again and he wants to cry. And he does. For a split second.

Then he gets shot twice which is very painful and he ends up in hospital thankfully not-dying. And then he leaves and he doesn’t quite know what to do yet because he’s alone again and still not great at moving his arm.

\---

Dirk wakes up from a nightmare shaking. He hopes he hasn’t woken Todd or Farah up. For a moment the walls look white and the tears keep coming no matter how hard he tries to stop.

Tea. Tea helps.

So he gets up and goes into the kitchen and makes a cup of tea and burns his hand in the usual spot because they’re still shaking and his eyes are still wet and he screwed it up all wrong, wrong, wro-

‘Dirk?’

Oh dear.

‘Hello, Todd.’

‘Dirk, what are you still doing up? It’s like 2 AM.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s… fine, I’m just making tea.’ Todd squints in the dark.

‘Wait… Dirk, are you crying? What happened? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ he says, too quickly.

‘Hey.’ Todd moves forward and takes his arm very gently. ‘Talk to me.’

‘It was just a bad dream.’

‘Was it… Blackwing?’ Dirk’s hands shake harder. He nods. ‘Oh, Dirk.’ Todd stares at him for a moment. Then he moves his hand from Dirk’s wrist and wraps it around his back. He guides him slowly to the sofa and makes him sit down. He finishes the tea and brings Dirk his mug. Chamomile with a spoonful of honey.

‘Do you wanna talk?’ Dirk doesn’t respond for a moment, sipping his tea. Then he shakes his head. Todd just looks at him with an odd expression. Then he pulls him into a hug.

Dirk is surprised. He is shocked. He goes stiffer than he already was. He doesn’t really know what to do so he tries to hug back as best he can. Then Todd starts rubbing his back and he’s crying again, silent sobs into Todd’s shoulder, clutching his best friend’s old t-shirt and shaking. And Todd doesn’t leave. He stays and he holds Dirk for nearly half an hour while he ‘gets it all out’.

Dirk Gently sits up at two thirty in the morning and smiles because he isn’t alone anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah. That's the fic. I'm sorry I haven't updated my Camp Camp fic if you're also reading that. I'm now writing on my new laptop, but chapter 5 of that is still on my phone and I'm struggling with where to end the chapter. Hopefully, I'll update soon. 
> 
> Otherwise, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to see more of my work, you can check out my profile on here. You can also check out my fandom blog on tumblr.com @still-waiting-for-the-gays. If you'd like to read my rambling about mental health and original works, you can check out my primary on tumblr @wellweatheredwolf. I hope you have a nice morning/day/afternoon/evening/night, wherever you are and find a reason to smile soon!


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